This invention relates generally to systems and methods for providing assistance to multiple customers, and more particularly, to a system and method for a multi-tasking telephone and web-based call center.
Today""s businesses are relying more and more on telecommunications systems to help manage their interaction with others. Customer service often determines how a company is perceived. Businesses want to reduce their customer service costs by enabling their employees to maintain a maximum number of calls and reduce their idle time to a minimum. Conventional or prior art methods typically employ ACD (automatic call distribution) services.
ACD systems route incoming telephone calls to a pool of agents or to a specific agent based on the telephone number dialed by the customer, information entered by the customer, or the customer""s phone number. In certain instances when all agents are busy, ACD systems can hold the call in a queue, prompt the caller to leave a voice message for a later call back, or redirect the call to another group of agents with a shorter queue time.
Unfortunately, due to the hold times often encountered with ACD systems, customers may become frustrated and perceive that their time is being wasted. This may deter customers from calling the company on future occasions. As companies rely on agents to handle calls, agent productivity becomes a major cost factor. Therefore, a need exists for a method of providing assistance to a customer that reduces the amount of wasted time perceived by the customer, as well as maintain or increase the productivity of agents at a call center.
The present invention provides a system and method for a multi-tasking, web-based call center that substantially eliminates or reduces disadvantages and problems associated with previously developed systems and methods used for providing assistance to multiple customers.
More specifically, the present invention provides a system for a telephone and web-based call center that provides assistance to multiple simultaneous customers for a single agent that significantly increases call center productivity. The system includes at least one external communication pathway through which a customer can submit a request to the web-based call center. The web-based call center includes a pool of agents that can provide information in response to requests submitted by customers. The system also includes a software engine that routes and schedules customer request to available agents via internal communication pathways. Agents can view customer data on a user interface. The customer data can aid the agents in providing information to the customs. Agents can multi-task by providing assistance to multiple customer at one time.
The present invention provides an important technical advantage in that customers can browse the web while waiting for a response from an agent. This enables the customer to use their time in a more constructive manner rather than just xe2x80x9csittingxe2x80x9d and waiting for a response from an available agent.
The present invention provides another technical advantage in that it allows the agent to multi-task. Thus, the agent can provide information to a first customer and while this customer is becoming familiar with the information, the agent can assist another customer. By multi-tasking, the agent can reduce the overall cost to the call center.
Still yet another technical advantage of the present invention is that customers can interact with more than one agent. For instance a first agent may provide assistance to a customer and then move on to another customer. If the first customer requires further assistance, the customer may be routed to another agent capable of providing follow-up information. This can improve agent productivity since requests do not have to be queued frequently to a single agent.
Another technical advantage of the present invention is that customers can be grouped and their requests can be forwarded to a specialized agent or a live event. In this case, a group of customer requests can be serially addressed, thus saving time and money to the web-based call center.